Kerala Feeds: [Keralites] Samsung G600 makes an entry

Today, the words "camera" and "mobile phone" have become ubiquitous. Almost every phone that is manufactured has a camera built into it

Previously, the cameras on these phones were considered gimmicky since they lacked the quality and advanced shooting options of a stand-alone digital camera. But now, manufacturers are taking this add-on feature seriously; adding in more and more mega-pixels with features like auto-focus, macro mode, and xenon flash, among others.

Samsung's G600 attempts to merge a communication device with an imaging device. Let's see whether it is successful in doing so.

Turn ons

Great build quality and ergonomics, Good call quality, Good battery life.

Turn offs

Above average picture quality, No full-screen video mode, No 3G.

Bundle

Handset
Battery
Charger
512 MB Micro SD Card
Data Cable
Stereo Hands-free

Samsung also provides an optional TV-out cable accessory by which you can directly display photos taken from the phone on the big screen.

Design and Construction

The Samsung G600 is available in a metallic grayish-black shade. The phone has appealing looks. The overall styling of the metallic body makes it look like it's meant for business. Weighing at 104 grams, the phone is fairly light. It is pretty slender and comfortable to carry in the pocket, thanks to its 14.9mm thickness.

Front: The front of the phone consists of a well-sized 2.2 inches screen. Like all previous Samsung offerings, the screen portrays great clarity, good colors, and amazing brightness.

The brightness can be automatically controlled with the use of the ambient light sensor placed next to the speaker/ear-piece grille. This sensor is very accurate and it changes the brightness of the screen according to external conditions. This helps in lessening the strain on the eye and saving some battery power too.

Below the screen, the 5-way D-pad is placed along with 2 navigation keys, call accept/call end keys, and a cancel button. The navigation pad is big and tactile, and one of the best that I've used yet. The rest of the buttons are nice too.

Right: The camera shutter button and the microSD card slot are located here.

Left: The volume keys and the Charging/USB connectivity port are placed here.

Back: In its closed form, one can see the cover which hides the battery and the SIM card slot.

When the phone is slid open, it reveals the 5 mega-pixel camera sensor and the photo-assist light next to it. Thus, the sliding mechanism also acts as the camera lens cover.

The numeric keypad consists of decently sized buttons. There are 2 metallic strips dividing the keypad into 3 columns. Dodging these strips while typing takes some time to get used to, but after that the buttons can be used conveniently.

The overall construction of the phone is great. The build quality is amazing. I feel that this phone should be able to sustain a lot of beating.

Specifications Sheet

The G600 doesn't have 3G capability. Since 3G isn't yet available in India, its absence will not currently matter right at the moment.

User Interface

The G600 uses Samsung's proprietary User Interface. The main screen shows the usual information, and there's an option to display the calendar onto the home screen as well.

The menus are animated. The speed of the UI is good; it does slow down a bit when the music player is simultaneously used, but that's acceptable.

Built-in applications include a World Clock, Unit converter, Image editor, Basic organizer etc. There are 6 games pre-installed with support for installing more java based apps later on. The file manager neatly organizes all the content on the phone. There are a few pre-installed themes and there's also an option to create your own on the phone itself.

The music player categorizes tracks according to artists, genres, albums, playlists, or according to user ratings. It also supports podcasts. There are many preset equalizations but no option to create custom ones.

The G600 supports MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/WMA audio formats as well as MP4 video formats. Sadly, videos cannot be played in a full-screen landscape mode.

Unlike the recently reviewed Nokia 5610, there's an option to manually set the brightness according to the user's preference.

Performance

Network

The network of the phone was good. The phone latched on to the signal pretty well and the call quality was very clear -- no problems here. Volume via the speaker-phone during calls was fairly audible.

Multimedia

The audio quality of the phone is above average. The sound was somewhat flat. It's not going to replace your MP3 player for sure, but it's OK for listening to a couple of songs. The provided ear-phones fit comfortably. There's no mode for attaching standard 3.5mm headphones with this model. Videos played smoothly on this handset, but like I had mentioned above, not being able to watch them full-screen is no fun.

Audio played via the speaker-phone is somewhat lower in volume compared to the recent models that I've reviewed. Also, there are no external audio related control-buttons on the phone or on the headset. But then again, one must remember that this is not a music phone.

Camera

Ah yes, now we come to the core functionality of this phone. The 5 mega-pixel sensor can take snaps of up to 2560x1920 pixels. Advanced shooting options include macro mode, LED flash, timer, effects and frames, white balance setting, ISO adjustment and exposure metering. All these options can be easily accessed via the numeric keypad which acts as shortcut keys in the camera mode.

The overall photo quality is just above average. The colors were good, but the photos seemed to lack the sharpness and brightness. Due to this they looked somewhat washed out.

The night shots were grainy (mainly due to the absence of a xenon flash).

The G600 can capture video with a VGA resolution. It captured videos pretty well and they played back pretty smoothly.

Battery

The Samsung G600 is powered by a 3.7V 880 mAh Lithium-ion battery. In my testing period, the phone lasted for a good 2 days with mediocre usage of the multimedia features and around 45 minutes of talk-time.

Conclusion

The Samsung G600 is retailing at a street price of Rs. 16,750 with 1-year warranty. Till date, this phone is the cheapest 5 mega-pixel camera-phone available in the market.

www.keralites.net

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